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Baptist Hospital - And The Walls Come Tumbling Down

Following is a press release from Memphis Bioworks Foundation regarding the demolition of Baptist Hospital, where Elvis was treated on several occasions, where the official prounouncement of his passing occurred and where his daughter Lisa Marie was born.
Memphis Bioworks Foundation Announces Date of Baptist Main Tower Demolition
The Memphis Bioworks Foundation has announced that the implosion of the main tower of the Baptist Hospital on Union Avenue will occur on November 6, 2005, at 6:30 a.m.
The implosion of the 924,000-square-foot tower is part of the Foundation’s second phase of demolition as it makes way for construction of the UT-Baptist Research Park. The research park will ultimately consist of 1.2 million square feet of laboratory, research, education and business development space located on a 10-acre campus in the heart of the Memphis Medical District. The new campus will integrate research, teaching and biomedical development.
The first phase consisted of the removal of the four-story Service building in January of this year. The eight-story Interns’ Residence and the 10-story Physicians and Surgeons buildings were then imploded in May.
“Once the main tower has been cleared away, we’ll be able to begin work on the centerpiece of our infrastructure development for the city’s biosciences – the UT-Baptist Research Park,” said Dr. Steven J. Bares, Executive Director and President of the Memphis Bioworks Foundation. “We now will be able to build highly specialized facilities for Memphis’ growing bioscience community, thereby attracting new companies and further boosting the economic growth of the region.”
Bares added that the clean up and debris removal process is expected to be finished in about 11 months.
The completion of the UT-Baptist Research Park is estimated to take ten years, and will be completed in six phases. The Foundation is executing a business plan that is leveraging Memphis’ unique assets to fulfill the nation’s need for an urban biotech research park. When completed, the entire development will provide $250 million in annual salaries for 5,000 new jobs and $2 billion in annual economic impact.
Memphis Bioworks Foundation, a not-for-profit organization, was formed in early 2001 to establish the Memphis region as an internationally recognized center for biomedical technology. Baptist Memorial Health Care donated its property in the Medical Center to the Foundation for the site of its research park, the focal point of the biomedical and economic development. The research park, which will include an incubation program to develop new businesses in biotechnology, will be the centerpiece of a larger biomedical research and development center.